Jefferson Healthcare in Port Townsend and Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles have been ranked as two of the top Washington state hospitals in Consumer Reports’ new hospital surgery rating system.
The August edition of Consumer Reports rated 2,463 hospitals for common surgical procedures using three years of Medicare billing records.
In Washington state, 49 hospitals were evaluated.
OMC and Jefferson Healthcare were rated among the top 16.
Forks Community Hospital, which serves residents of west Clallam and Jefferson counties, was not among the 49 state hospitals rated by the magazine.
The analysis covered 27 kinds of common surgeries, including hip and knee replacements, back surgery and surgery to clear blocked arteries.
Consumer Reports’ rating system also factored in the percent of Medicare patients undergoing surgery who died or were hospitalized longer than expected, which could indicate complications.
They worked on the ratings with MPA, a health care consulting firm with expertise in analyzing billing claims and clinical data.
The magazine looked at results for 27 kinds of scheduled surgeries, which were combined into an overall surgery rating, and developed ratings for five of those procedures: back surgery, replacements of the hip or knee and procedures to remove blockages in arteries in the heart (angioplasty) or neck (carotid artery surgery).
Billing claims that hospitals submitted to Medicare for patients 65 and older from 2009 through 2011 were used in factoring the rankings.
Results are available at www.consumerreports.org/surgeryratings.
